A Lesson in Creating Services for the Community

By: Elvira R. Gonzalez, LCSW, Vice President, Puerto Rican Family Institute, Inc.

(May 2007)

For some of us, the professional path we take is nurtured, enriched and always in a state of evolution alongside our “employer”.  For the last twenty five years, I have forged such a path with the Puerto Rican Family Institute.  The road, sometimes bumpy, has taken many turns along the way but always directed to strengthen and serve the Latino community. This opportunity to share with you who we are has allowed me to reflect on where we have been and how far we’ve come.  The Institute was founded in 1960 by a group of Puerto Rican social workers concerned with the plight of the Puerto Rican migrant family as they struggled to overcome language and cultural barriers related to life in New York City.  For five years, they volunteered their services which primarily involved identifying and recruiting well adapted and high functioning Puerto Rican families to help newly arrived families in the adaptation process.  I often hear program planners and policy makers talk about the value of Peer Projects and similar models of service delivery as new and innovative ideas.  It makes me wonder why no one remembers the visionary work of our founders. Good thing I never learned to suffer in silence.  The Institute’s first funding was attained in 1965 through the NYC Community Development Agency. 

Today, our organization is a private, multi-program, multi-funded not for profit community based organization, now in its 47th year of operation, serving Latino children and families.  With an operating budget approaching $30 million, the Institute sponsors Clinic Treatment Programs, Intermediate Care facilities, Children, Intensive, Supportive and Blended Case Management Programs, Home Based Crisis, Adolescent Day Treatment, Head Start and Child Placement Prevention Programs.  Hospitalizations and out of home placements are averted for 98% of those served.  It is mind boggling that when I came on board in 1985, the agency was a labor of love with a $2 million operating budget and struggling to survive. 

The path to organizational wellness has been a difficult, challenging, yet an extremely rewarding one.  We realized early on that our success depended on a businesslike approach that would incorporate careful planning, sound fiscal management, consistent growth and expansion, and institutional development.  If I could share anything with managers, community activists, colleagues and others in our field, it would be to underscore the importance of institutional empowerment in helping one to operate from a position of strength and stability.

I am pleased and awed at how we have been able to transform ourselves into a large organization that thrives and competes in a business environment.  We employ over five hundred (500) professionals, para-professionals and support staff.  We respond and are accountable to a myriad of funding streams and government entities.  We take pride in the maintenance and sustenance of a programmatically and fiscally sound operation, a position supported by both internal and external examiners.  We are involved with other systems: health, human services, government and the private sector, as advocates for programs, policies, services and other opportunities that contribute to reversing the ravaging effects of poverty and isolation.  We also help to address major barriers that adversely impact the lives of Latino children and families.  We have become part of the landscape in our city in order to make sure that we have a seat at the decision making table.  Given a choice, I’d rather be a policy maker than an advocate; I much prefer to act than to react.  We have to make a conscious decision to empower our minority institutions not unlike we envision empowering our clients.  I like to think that we have been successful in becoming part of the community of providers in representing our organization.  We may not have attained full participation, but like the community we represent, we’ll continue to work on it.